


Department of Dragon Daycare

by alittlelesspain



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-09
Updated: 2019-05-09
Packaged: 2020-02-29 02:35:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18769426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alittlelesspain/pseuds/alittlelesspain
Summary: Alex Danvers has often thought of maybe raising a child one day, after things at the DEO calm down a bit. Some human child, who needs her to protect them. Later, the more she works with Kara in the DEO, and has to deal with vulnerable aliens like Marcus, she even thinks of adopting an alien child, and the challenges she’d have to face in that regard.She never expects, in her wildest imaginations, to be roped into raising a dragon.





	Department of Dragon Daycare

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve always wanted to write Alex and Astra raising a baby dragon together, and Alex and Brainy are my favourite BrOTP from SG S4, so when the Legends episode with the dragon egg came around, I just knew I had to work it into a fic somehow.

Alex Danvers has often thought of maybe raising a child one day, after things at the DEO calm down a bit. Some human child, who needs her to protect them. Later, the more she works with Kara in the DEO, and has to deal with vulnerable aliens like Marcus, she even thinks of adopting an alien child, and the challenges she’d have to face in that regard.

She never expects, in her wildest imaginations, to be roped into raising a dragon.

* * *

 

Any other person, upon giving Alex a dragon egg, might have explained to her what the fuck it actually is, before taking off.

If they were really nice, they might have even given her a handbook on how to raise a dragon.

Anyone, other than Captain Sara Lance of the time-travelling Waverider spaceship, would have done that.

But since it _is_ Sara Lance, she simply shows up out of the blue one day, landing the Waverider right in the middle of the desert, which of course means that a DEO envoy has to be ordered to go meet it.

“Here!” She shoves an oval-shaped ball into the hands of Alex, who’s leading the envoy, before running back to the ship. “Neron’s guys are after it, and you’re the only ones I know who are far enough away from our timeline to be able to guard it. Take care of that!”

“What the fuck?” Alex calls after her. “Who’s Neron?”

“Big bad demon, no time to explain.” Sara calls back, as she vaults up the steps of the ship. “Gotta go save the timeline again, bye!”

* * *

 

By the time Alex returns to the DEO headquarters with the ball, she’s already in a bad mood, compounded by a headache borne of having to work two back-to-back shifts, on account of the Waverider emergency coming right on top of the newest Agents of Liberty nonsense.

“Director Danvers, the President just put through a call to you,” Vasquez says, walking over, before stopping short at the sight of the ball in Alex’s arms. “What’s that?”

“More Legends shenanigans,” Alex says, wearily. “Route the call to my office, I’ll take it there.”

She tosses the ball towards the nearest containment pillar. “And stay away from this. I don’t know what it is, but Sara Lance told us to take care of it, so it’s definitely dangerous.”

As she tosses the ball, she doesn’t expect Astra, out of all the people watching, to go wide-eyed and give an uncharacteristic yelp, before diving for the ball and catching it in midair.

“Alexandra! You could have hurt him!”

“Him?” Alex stares at the alien, nonplussed. “What?

Astra is cradling the ball in her arms, like it’s something precious, while giving Alex an accusing look.

“It’s just a ball,” Alex says, feeling vaguely guilty. “I figured it was some kind of alien artifact.”

“Of course not,” Astra says, staring at her as if _Alex_ is the one not making sense in this situation “How can you treat it so callously?”

“Why not?” Alex snaps.

“Because it is not a simple ball, or an alien artifact,” Astra says. “It’s a dragon egg.”

* * *

 

“Are you sure this is safe, Brainy?” Alex asks.

She looks doubtfully up at the swirling column of fire in the middle of the DEO, contained in place by a forcefield. In the middle of it floats the thing that Astra claims is a Yvernian dragon’s egg.

“I’ve replicated the temperature of a birthing dragon exactly,” Querl Dox says, from beside her. “Think of it like an incubator." He pauses. "Except much bigger. And on fire."

Alex shakes her head.

“Are we even sure Astra is right?” she asks. “I know she said that she recognized the patterning on the egg, but she also said that it was a long time since she last visited Yvern. She might be getting something mixed up.”

  
“Kryptonians have photographic memory, and General In-Ze is not given to making unsubstantiated claims.” Brainy’s normally stoic face caves to a small but confident smile. “Every known species of dragon in the universe were extinct by my time, hunted to nothing. If there’s even the smallest chance that we can save even one of them, we should take it.”

Alex shakes her head again.

“Everyday, I think I’ve seen everything that this job has to offer,” she says, looking at the pillar of fire that all the DEO agents keep making excuses to walk past. “And then, I get another curveball thrown at me.”

* * *

 

The egg spends more than two weeks in Brainy’s makeshift incubator, before it starts to show signs of doing anything.

Alex is just returning from a briefing, Querl at her side, when a loud crack catches her attention.

She whips her head around to face the noise, fingers immediately gravitating towards her holster. “What was that?”

“It’s hatching,” Brainy says, already hurrying towards the sound. “The dragon is hatching! The incubator worked!”

Alex follows him more slowly, watching with apprehension as tendrils of fire escape the containment column.

“Brainy, are you sure you know what’s going on?”

Brainy nods in a distracted way, as he hurriedly punches some things into the terminal, which causes the pillar of fire to shift around the egg.

“We need to take it out before the whole thing becomes unstable,” he says.

“It’s on fire, Brainy!”

“Now, director!”

Hearing the edge in his calm voice, Alex reaches in hurriedly, feeling the hair on her arms singe from the heat. She draws the egg out of the forefield carefully, and backs away, realizing that it seems a lot heavier now, than when she had first put it in there.

From the terminal, Brainy gives a relieved sigh and shuts the column down, the fire receding away into nothing.

“What do I do now?” Alex asks, juggling the still-hot egg from hand to hand.

“I’m not sure,” Brainy admits. “Twelfth-level intellect doesn’t come ingrained with knowledge on how to raise a creature long thought extinct.”

Alex stares at him, and then down at the egg.

“We know someone who just might,” she says, slowly, before her attention is taken by another cracking noise from the egg. “It’s doing something again!”

As the two of them watch, with curious DEO agents huddled all around them, there are more cracks rapidly spreading over the surface of the once-smooth shell of the egg. Then, the entire thing blows out altogether, in one final burst of flame that singes Alex’s face.

“What the-!”

When she’s finally blinked away the ash, Alex sees eyes of a radiant amber looking up at her, in a head that’s too small for them. As she watches, enraptured, the baby dragon reaches out with a translucent hand, grasping on to Alex’s forearm.

He squawks, kind of like a chicken.

“ _Oh_ ,” Alex says, feeling something bloom inside her.

There’s a gust of wind, as one of the windows of the headquarters blow open. Alex turns in time to see Astra land, and stride over, with a familiar “I told you so.” look on her face.

“Well,” she says turning back to Brainy with a sigh, “Now that the expert is here, I guess it’s official. We have a baby dragon to raise.”

* * *

 

The baby dragon likes Astra. Any time she visits the DEO, he doesn’t leave her side for the rest of the day, as far as Alex call tell. For her part, Astra seems equally fond of him, privately cooing over him the way Kara coos over dogs and kittens. (She doesn’t do it in front of the other DEO agents, but Alex has the security tapes of it saved, for future blackmail fodder.)

She’s even named the dragon. Or rather, she’s learned his name. Apparently Yvernian dragons know their own name, although Alex hasn’t been able to pronounce it yet, despite Astra trying to teach her how.

Not that Alex herself is immune to the dragon’s charms, either. The creature seems to have imprinted on her somehow, maybe because she was the first thing he saw after he hatched. Alex has now had to give many a briefing to her agents, and do conference calls with other DEO branches, while a teething dragon snuffles into her neck. In fact, the only time he seems to leave her side is when the Kryptonians are at the DEO.

“It’s the warmth,” Brainy explains, as they watch Astra take the dragon to his second feeding of the day. “Dragons gravitate to heat, and Kryptonians are basically walking space-heaters.”

“Huh,” Alex says.

She feels something strange in her chest, when she sees the way Astra cradles the dragon, as tenderly as she would a child. She’s heard Kara talking about Krypton sometimes, and Astra’s career in the military, and she wonder if Astra’s childlessness was a choice or... something else.

“He’s like that with Supergirl too,” Vasquez puts it. “You should see him snuggling up to her for treats. She almost cried today morning, because she had to go back to work, and couldn’t take him with her.”

She sighs, looking at the baby dragon with the same doting expression that even the most hardened of the DEO agents seem to get, when around him. “Dunno what we’re going to do when he gets bigger, though. We can only hide him out here in the desert for so long.”

“Actually,” Alex says, watching the gentle way that Astra feeds the dragon, patiently putting up with his hiccups and pickiness, “I think I know just the place.”

* * *

 

Astra has a place, a few hours outside of National City.

It’s not a place, really. It’s more like a fucking expanse, fields upon fields of land stretching as far as the eye can see in every direction. From what Alex knows, it’s unused land that had used to belong to a billionaire, until Astra had procured it for herself, using financial shenanigans that Alex really doesn’t want to know about.

Now, with her reworking efforts, it’s become an unofficial sanctuary of sorts, for offworld species that the DEO can’t rehome in National City. In just a few years, what had started out as nothing but uneven fields has grown into a series of homes and apartments, with plenty of land still left for the more nomadic species.

Even though it’s Alex’s idea in the first place to take the dragon there, she gets a little unsure of it when she gets out of the car with him, and realizes again how huge the place actually is.

“I don’t know if he’s going to keep up with all of this.”

“We can’t keep him cooped up in the DEO forever,” Kara says, landing by her side. “He needs to see the sun, and learn how to grow.”

She runs a gentle finger down the budding horns of the dragon that Alex is currently holding, and he makes a squeaking noise in return. Alex holds him even tighter.

“But, will he be safe?” she asks, looking around. “You know how aggressive some of the aliens here are, Kara.”

“We’ll be checking on him every day,” Kara says. “Plus, Aunt Astra will be around when we’re not. It’s definitely safer for him here than if General Lane or someone gets their hands on him.”

Alex has to admit that she has a point. Even with President Baker being kicked out, and the Agents of Liberty subdued, there’s still a lot more interference with DEO activities than before, from the government. She wagers that the fact that they’ve started to rehome alien captives, rather than jailing them indefinitely, is a big reason why.

“Go on,” Kara says. “He’ll be fine.”

She pats Alex on the back, before flying back to Catco. Alone, Alex makes the trek towards one of the smaller cottages, which she knows to be Astra’s makeshift home here.

Astra herself is waiting by her small garden for them. As soon as she comes into sight, the baby dragon jumps from Alex’s arms towards her like a shot. He makes the leap with ease, his wings flaring a little.

“He’s flying a little farther every day, “ Astra mentions, catching him.

She drags slow fingers over his hide, in a way that makes the dragon still his excited wiggling. He snuffles against her, before his head comes to rest on her shoulder, while Astra holds him up. Alex watches them, feeling a strange aura of peace wash over her, like a certainty that this is how things are meant to be.

“He will be safe,” Astra says, as if she’s heard Alex’s earlier question, and of course she must have, Kryptonian hearing and all. “You have my word, Alex.”

“I know,” Alex says.

She moves closer, to touch the dragon again, which brings her in closer proximity to Astra, too. Alex flushes and clears her throat. “I trust you. You know that, right?”

Astra smiles back at her, her eyes crinkling in a beautiful way, and just for a minute, Alex feels all her worries and responsibilities fly away.

* * *

 

It’s six months later when Sara Lance finally returns for the dragon, with the Waverider suddenly appearing out of the air outside the DEO’s desert headquarters.

“Ok, we’ve taken care of Neron,” Sara says, striding out of it like it’s perfectly normal for time-travelling spaceships to appear out of thin air with zero notice. “Where’s the egg at? We’ve finally got a place to store it.”

“Uh...” Alex turns to Astra, around whose neck the dragon is currently snuggling. “The egg is... him, actually.”

Astra has a dangerous look on her face, as the baby dragon whines uneasily, his head trembling.

“I was thinking that we could keep him?” Alex hazards.

Astra’s face relaxes, and she shoots Alex a quick smile.

“What?” Sara looks between the two of them. “That wasn’t the plan, Alex.”

“Yeah well,” Alex says, trying not to look in Astra’s direction again, because if anyone is going to cotton onto that immediately, it’s Sara. “The thing is, he hatched, and everyone’s gotten really fond of him, and I’m pretty sure Kara will go into full mourning if he’s taken away, at this point.”

Sara stares at her, then at the dragon, who’s now doing his best to hide his face in Astra’s mass of hair, out of the sight of the Waverider crew. Then, she sighs.

“For once, I just want things to work out the way they did in my head,” she says, before turning back to her crew. “Ok team, plan B.”

“Pretty sure we passed Plan B a few disasters back,” the woman beside her - Zari, if Alex remembers correctly - puts in. “We’re at least at Q, now.”

“Thanks, Z, really helpful.” Sara rubs her forehead with her fingers, before turning her attention back to Alex. “Are you serious? Where is the DEO going to hide a dragon?"

“We’ve got a place for him out of the city,” Alex says. “Well, Astra has. It’s big enough for him to have a bit of range, and there’s cloaking technology built into the whole place.”

“And he’ll have a friend,” Astra puts in. “M’gann has found another one, an Infernian wyvern looking for a home. He lost his parents in the Cair-Magian wars.”

Sara studies her, before turning to Zari, who shrugs.

“It’s technically out of our timeline?” she ventures. “Not sure if it counts as a hack but, not our circus, not our monkeys. Or dragons, in this case.”

“Yeah, this is definitely not gonna come back and bite us in the ass,” Sara says. “Maybe literally.”

She puts a quelling hand up, when Alex opens her mouth to argue.

“Ok, fine. You can keep him. But, please make sure that you have things under control. The last thing we need is another anachronous timeline on our hands.”

“Not even going to pretend that I know what that means,” Alex says. “But, we’ve kept Supergirl and Dreamer’s identity from public scrutiny for the past few years.” She steadfastly ignores Vasquez’s snort from behind her, at that. “I’m sure we can handle a dragon.”

“If you say so.”

Sara doesn't seem fully convinced, but also seems unwilling to separate the cowering dragon from Astra. A perverse part of Alex really wants her to try, just to see who comes out on top in the ensuing fight.

"I do,” Alex says, more convincingly than she feels.

Sara nods. "Fine." She turns to her crew again. "You heard them, gang, they've got this one. Let's go round up Ava, and get cracking before sunset on that vampire she told us about."

When the rest of her team has mounted their ship, though, she lingers behind, turning back to give Astra an appraising onceover, before shooting Alex a wink.

"Gotta say, Danvers, a dragon's a pretty big gamble to pick, just to get into bed with someone."

With that, she’s gone, leaving Alex behind with burning cheeks.

"What did she mean?"

Astra moves closer to Alex, as she asks the question. Taking the chance, the dragon shifts from his hiding place to cross over to Alex 's shoulder, and starts licking her cheek vigorously.

“Hey!” Alex makes half-hearted attempts to bat him away, before giving it up as a lost cause. "That was just nonsense. Don't listen to her."

“Hmm.” Astra doesn't look convinced. Then, she seems to soften. "Thank you. You didn’t have to do that.”

"Yeah, well." Alex can feel her cheeks burn anew. "I'm pretty sure you'd have started World War Three if we _had_ let them go off with the dragon, so."

Astra smiles, but doesn't refute Alex's statement.

"I'll go introduce him to his new friend," she says, as the dragon climbs back onto her head, purring like a train. She smiles at Alex, wide and warm in a way she rarely does in public. "Would you like to come with me?"

Alex hazards a look around them at the fast-dispersing agents, who are already distracted by other things.

"Ok,” she says, just before Astra grabs her by the waist, and then they're gone.

* * *

 

“He’s having fun,” Alex says.

Astra nods without turning to her, as they both watch the two dragons wheeling up into the air before them, circling round and round like they’re trying to catch each other’s tails. In the expansive field, they look tiny, but Alex wagers they’ll outgrow it soon enough, in the upcoming years.

Trained into always preparing for the future, she can’t help but wonder what will happen then. She knows her own kind well enough to know that full grown dragons aren’t going to go down well in the public eye, no matter how popular Game of Thrones might be.

“M'gann says there's word of a secret colony of dragons on Mars,” Astra says, as if reading her thoughts. “Maybe he would like to go there, once he's grown up, to find more like him.”

There's a strange sadness to her words when she says that, as if she's already mourning that loss, years before it comes. Alex realizes that she’s feeling the same thing, like a mother mourning her child growing up before her eyes. Suddenly, she wants to call the dragon back, and have him snuggle with her again. Even the smelly-mouthed licks don’t seem so bad a fate to be resigned to.

“That won’t be for a while yet,” she says, shifting closer to Astra. “Look at him. He’s so happy with his new friend.”

Without really thinking about it, she rests her head against Astra’s shoulder, while they watch the two dragons. Then, she remembers herself. Before she can pull back, though, Astra tilts her own head, so that it’s leaning against Alex’s as well.

“Thank you again,” she says, softly. “I don’t think I would have stopped worrying about him for a single moment, if he had been taken away.”

“Me neither,” Alex says. She laughs. “Kara is gonna be happy, too, when she finds out.”

She feels, rather than sees, Astra’s smile. "What a strange little family we've become."

At that, Alex does lift her head, forcing Astra to turn too, so that their gazes meet.

“Family?” she echoes.

Astra stares back at her. “Do you disagree?”

Alex flounders for words. She still remembers, clear as day, when Astra had asked her a question similar to that, back in the days when they fought on opposing sides. What a drastically different answer had come to the tip of her tongue, then.

But, that was a long time ago. They’ve faced too many things together, confided too many secrets to each other, and saved each other’s lives too many times, for her answer to hold true anymore.

“No,” she murmurs, moving back to Astra. She loops an arm around her waist, and buries her face even tighter into her shoulder this time, so tight that her nose smushes against Astra’s neck. “You’re right. Family is exactly what we are, in our own weird way.”

As they stand there together, Astra bends down. She probably means to kiss her on the cheek, but her lips land at an awkward angle, right near the corner of Alex’s eyes. Alex smiles, somehow not surprised at it. They’ve been dancing around each other too long for her to pretend to be shocked at this, no matter what insinuations Sara might have made.

This, she knows, is family. This, she knows, is home.

* * *

 


End file.
